Historical persons challenge -- the discussion

[pelegrino]

I like the fact that the "Prometheus" poem celebrates the emergence of man as a species distinct from the animal kingdom, by his use of fire (although the poem presents it somewhat more primally than that.) What I miss, though, is the political implication of the Prometheus myth -- Prometheus taking the side of the common man against the aristocracy of the gods, and being willing to endure perpetual torture just for the pleasure of defying Zeus. He's my kinda guy.

My kind of guy too, and what you say is the most valid thing about this whole tale imo.
Man does not need any gods to survive, especially autocratic ones to whom you referred but also some newer versions of them (not made in Greece).

 

[Equinoxe]

tzara? angeline? grr, i need to know and lack patience....

I really like it, too. I thought maybe GM or perhaps AH. I know Tzara has written about Rilke before, but it doesn't quite feel like his lines to me....

... My first thought was that, since Page was Canadian, it might be by Tess or Champie, but as Angie said about it being by me (which it isn't), it doesn't seem quite in the style of either of them. I could be wrong about that, though.

It sounds something like gm to me, but I'd guess it's probably by someone else. Who, though, I have no idea.

I am not familiar enough with poet's voices here to even begin to venture a guess, but I think I'm getting déjà vu of something that happened in the Imitation challenge—'was it her, or him, or her, or him, or, wait, isn't it someone Canadian?'

... What I miss, though, is the political implication of the Prometheus myth -- Prometheus taking the side of the common man against the aristocracy of the gods, and being willing to endure perpetual torture just for the pleasure of defying Zeus. He's my kinda guy.

I am going to have to strongly disagree. The poem is largely outside my sympathies, but I don't think there is anything missing by virtue of not taking that interpretation. Given the perspective the poet has chosen to present, any discussion of 'liberté, égalité, fraternité' would be extraneous and thematically unbefitting. And there isn't much point in faulting a poem for not committing itself to a different understanding of its subject. You could dispute the validity of its interpretation—that there are no right answers does not mean there are not wrong ones—or find its chosen perspective shallow, but I don't believe either is appropriate or relevant here. So, I don't really agree.

But, for what it's worth, your reading of the myth of Prometheus is not mine, either.

 

[Magnetron]

Springtime on The Ark is one of those poems where I said to myself "I wish I had written that."

Admit it. You did. Say it. SAY IT!

I dunno.

It's a damn fine piece that reads like you.

Unless something better comes along or I submit an entry ( highly unlikely it would be both in the same breath ), I'm crowning this champion.

 

[Magnetron]

THE FANTASTIC STORY OF SAINT SERGIUS & SAINT BACCHUS is pelegrino.

He's the only foul mouth bastard who would dare write about Nunfuckery.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Springtime on The Ark is one of those poems where I said to myself "I wish I had written that."

Admit it. You did. Say it. SAY IT!

I dunno.

It's a damn fine piece that reads like you.

Unless something better comes along or I submit an entry ( highly unlikely it would be both in the same breath ), I'm crowning this champion.

I wish I could claim it as mine, Mag, but I can't.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Well, I finally figured out who Giacomo is, I think. I'm guessing Casanova.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I am at a loss to guess who the subject of #20, "Final Insight". The subject is described as male, which rules out Cassandra, who similarly complained of the curse of seeing the future. There is a lovely poem by Schiller about Cassandra that I translated many years ago:

Joy in Trojan congregations
Dwelt, before the fortress fell,
There were hymns of jubilation
Where the golden harp-strings swell.
All the people rested, weary
From the conflict fraught with tears,
Great Achilles sought to marry
Royal Priam's daughter fair.

And adorned with wreathes of myrtle
They went surging line by line,
To the gods' exalted temples
And Apollo's holy shrine.
To the passageways they'd taken
In a writhing bacchanal,
And to sorrow was forsaken
Just the saddest heart of all.

Joyless there amidst joy's fullness,
All alone she went to rove,
Just Cassandra shared the stillness
Of Apollo's myrtle grove.
To the forest's deepest quarter
Did the silent seeress flee,
Flung the headband of her order
To the ground most angrily:

"Everywhere is joy inherent,
Hearts rejoice throughout the lands,
Hope inspires my aging parents
And adorned my sister stands.
I alone must stay with sorrow,
Sweet delusion flies from me,
And approaching on the morrow
Dark disaster I foresee.

There's a torch that I see glowing,
But it's not in Hymen's hand,
Toward the clouds I see it growing
But it lights no wedding band.
Festivals are making ready
Yet my troubled spirit hears
Godly footsteps, swift and steady,
Bringing tragedy and tears.

And they scold my lamentations
And they mock me for my pain,
I must bear my heart's vexations
On the lonely desert plain,
Happy folk avoid me cooly
And the cheerful call me fraud!
Thou hast burdened me so cruelly,
O Apollo! Wicked god!

So that I might speak thy tidings
I received a prescient mind,
Why then must I be abiding
In the city of the blind?
Why have I prophetic fire
Yet can't hinder what I fear?
What's decreed must now transpire,
And the fearsome thing draws near.

When it hides the lurking terror,
Is it wise to lift the veil?
Human lives are only error
And with knowledge, death prevails.
Take away the bloody vision,
Take this wretched clarity,
Terrible! to be the living
Vessel of thy verity.

Give me back my darkened senses,
I'll be gladly blind by choice,
No sweet song from me commences
Since I first became thy voice.
Thou didst give the Future to me
Yet the Moment now I lack,
I have lost my Present truly,
Take thy false gift - take it back!

Never have I decorated
With the bridal crown my hair,
Since when I was consecrated
At thy doleful altar there.
All my youth was only weeping,
All I knew was bitter smart,
With the loved ones I was keeping,
Every hardship hurt my heart.

All around I see them wheeling,
Youthful playmates I have known,
Living, loving with such feeling,
Troubled heart was mine alone.
Springtime is for me no treasure
That the earth so festive keeps,
Who can live his life with pleasure
After gazing in thy deeps!

Blessings I give Polyxena.
Balmy love writ on her face,
For the greatest Greek she means to
Welcome with a bride's embrace.
How her breast with pride is swelling,
She can hardly grasp her bliss,
Even Ye, in heaven dwelling,
She doth not count blest like this.

And the suitor who entrances,
Whom I choose most longingly,
He implores with lovely glances
Fired by passion's fervency.
Visiting his habitation,
Oh, it would be my delight,
Yet a shadow of damnation
Steps between us in the night.

Pallid larvas from down yonder
Proserpina sends to me,
And wherever I may wander
All her spirits I must see.
In my childhood recreations
They would gruesomely intrude,
With such dread abominations
I may have no blithesome mood.

And I see the death-blade gleaming
And the glowing murderer's eye,
Nowhere, left nor right, 'tis seeming,
May I from this horror fly.
Seeing, knowing, never flinching,
I may not avert my gaze,
Now my fate comes closer inching,
All alone I'll end my days." --

And as yet her words did echo,
Hark! There comes an eerie sound,
From the portal of the temple,
Thetis' son, dead on the ground!
Eris shakes her serpent tresses,
All the gods are quickly gone,
And the thunder cloud oppresses
Heavy over Ilion.

 

[butters]

I am at a loss to guess who the subject of #20, "Final Insight". The subject is described as male, which rules out Cassandra,

i was thinking nostradamus, given he supposedly announced his approaching death plus him being known for his quatrains in his predictions.

 

[pelegrino]

Well, I finally figured out who Giacomo is, I think. I'm guessing Casanova.

I think you've got that one right and I second it. Title referring to his last profession, first name the same, last employer a duke or nobleman,
(don't know much about the duchess involved), but all elements are there.
Nice poem too, gives the realism of the era in no uncertain terms.

 

[pelegrino]

THE FANTASTIC STORY OF SAINT SERGIUS & SAINT BACCHUS is pelegrino.

He's the only foul mouth bastard who would dare write about Nunfuckery.

Well, I suppose I must confess to this one and stop hiding since you and Butters have already spotted me. Well done both!
btw, "Nunfuckery" is a very valid theological subject for legitimate speculation to me in its entirety and I plan to carry on with this long tale. In the end the church may loose an abbess but she wins two saints, not bad!

 

[greenmountaineer]

Blues for Number 25

It was fun figuring out #5 is about President McKinley

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=71439308&postcount=5

You tend not to think of him as one of the greats which the poet deftly alludes to in the piece and indirectly reinforces with a number; and the simile of the wife is very smart writing too.

I was impressed with how every word seemed to contribute something of value.

 

[Magnetron]

Untitled (#21)

Fuck if I know who it is about, but it is unmistakably Ashesh.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Untitled (#21)

Fuck if I know who it is about, but it is unmistakably Ashesh.

It's about Mahatma Ghandhi.

 

[oggbashan]

Comment on Untitled #21:

Birth of Nations

In the year of nineteen forty-seven
Indians expected freedom’s heaven.
Holy hatred spoiled new-found pride
In their tens of thousands they died.

The hatred born of nations’ division
Lives on, partition fuelled by fission.
The blame due to British Empire
Direly eclipsed by mutual holy ire.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Actually, the Empire directly fomented the communal violence in India. It is standard procedure to instigate a civil war for every former colony that asserts its independence (including the US).

 

[oggbashan]

Actually, the Empire directly fomented the communal violence in India. It is standard procedure to instigate a civil war for every former colony that asserts its independence (including the US).

That might be your view. It isn't supported by historians from India or Pakistan. Religious and ethnic violence was endemic long before partition.

Britain at the time did not have the resources to start, nor to suppress communal violence.

If other politicians had listened to Gandhi? They didn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

 

[HarryHill]

Comment on Untitled #21:

Birth of Nations

In the year of nineteen forty-seven
Indians expected freedom’s heaven.
Holy hatred spoiled new-found pride
In their tens of thousands they died.

The hatred born of nations’ division
Lives on, partition fuelled by fission.
The blame due to British Empire
Direly eclipsed by mutual holy ire.

..
Gandhi plays pretty regular on Pivot, if you haven't had a chance to see it (all of you mind) do so at first chance, it goes far past the emergence of India's self government into basic human rights

 

[AlwaysHungry]

..
Gandhi plays pretty regular on Pivot, if you haven't had a chance to see it (all of you mind) do so at first chance, it goes far past the emergence of India's self government into basic human rights

It's a great film. Here is my favorite scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0adv8zQsa9I

 

[Ashesh9]

Mea culpa

Untitled (#21)

Fuck if I know who it is about, but it is unmistakably Ashesh.

Guilty as charged !?!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I'm thinking that somewhere in the middle of next week, I'll post a list of authors so that the ID guessing can begin in earnest. Or, I'll first close the challenge and ask for votes. I've never done this before, so I'm open to suggestion. Perhaps the voting should go first, so that people will vote without being influenced by knowledge of which personalities are possibly involved. Would any of you veteran challenge participants care to offer any advice on this?

 

[Magnetron]

I'm thinking that somewhere in the middle of next week, I'll post a list of authors so that the ID guessing can begin in earnest. Or, I'll first close the challenge and ask for votes. I've never done this before, so I'm open to suggestion. Perhaps the voting should go first, so that people will vote without being influenced by knowledge of which personalities are possibly involved. Would any of you veteran challenge participants care to offer any advice on this?

Peeps here are apt to vote for quality over author.

I say, release the IDs and begin sending you votes.

 

[Angeline]

Peeps here are apt to vote for quality over author.

I say, release the IDs and begin sending you votes.

This has been my experience, too--quality trumps author. And if people are interested in doing a Halloween challenge, it's probably better to move on this one soon.

Also if people are voting that's going to take longer. It might be better to release the IDs and forgo the voting. Favorites will emerge anyway as people have some time to comment. I save voting for contests with prizes, but that's me. I'm also of the opinion that if one participates and writes they already won (but I'm not particularly competitive).

Hope this helps.

ETA: If your challenge ends by the 23rd (with or without votes) that still would give people a week to write Halloween poems and get them to Mags by the 30th so he could post them on the 31st.

 

[HarryHill]

It's a win for all far as I'm concerned ty AH

 

[AlwaysHungry]

How about this -- the names go up Monday, and the voting commences the moment the names go up (2 votes per person, you need not be a contestant to vote. Please PM me as soon as you see the announcement of names.) That will give people until Friday morning to vote and guess IDs. I'll post results on Friday morning. It also gives any stragglers the weekend in which to finish their poems.

Then, on Friday the 23rd, people can turn their attention to Halloween.

 

[butters]

How about this -- the names go up Monday, and the voting commences the moment the names go up (2 votes per person, you need not be a contestant to vote. Please PM me as soon as you see the announcement of names.) That will give people until Friday morning to vote and guess IDs. I'll post results on Friday morning. It also gives any stragglers the weekend in which to finish their poems.

Then, on Friday the 23rd, people can turn their attention to Halloween.

sounds good to me

and thankyou for all your hard work hosting this challenge.